Nikon D4S Review

Taking Nikon’s flagship, professional-level DSLR model to the next level, the newly-announced Nikon D4S aims to expand upon the company’s top-ranking D4 with an improved autofocus system, an insanely high ISO range, better speed and performance, as well as beefed up video recording specs. Although, by appearances, the D4S is not strikingly different from the D4, its under-the-hood improvements to performance and a number of niche features aim to satisfy a wide variety of professional photographers, from sports and wildlife shooters to photojournalists and multimedia producers.

Performance

Although the Nikon D4S keeps the same 16.2-megapixel FX-format CMOS sensor resolution, the sensor itself has been redesigned and paired up with Nikon’s latest EXPEED 4 image processor to provide 30% faster processing over the EXPEED 3. While the standard sensitivity range has been increased up to ISO 25,600 equivalent (up from ISO 12,800), the D4S is also capable of an expanded sensitivity up to an incredible ISO 409,600 equivalent. That’s double the maximum sensitivity of the D4, making the D4S capable of producing images in some of the darkest of conditions.

Photographers of fast action will also welcome the increase to 11 frames per second burst shooting with continuous AF and auto exposure, up from 10 fps. (The D4 was capable of 11 fps shooting only with focus and exposure locked from the first frame).

Buffer depth improves to a 200-shot capacity for JPEGs of any size or resolution, versus 170 for the D4. In raw mode, Nikon rates the D4S as capable of 133 frames with lossless compression and a 12-bit depth, up from 92 frames for the D4. The improvement at 14-bit depth is more modest, up three frames to a total of 78 frames. The worst case is 60 uncompressed (down from 69), 14-bit raws, and the best case is 176 lossy 12-bit raws (up from 98).

All of these figures are manufacturer specs and at FX-format resolution; for DX-format shooting, you can expect 200 frames with all but 14-bit uncompressed and small 12-bit uncompressed raws. We only tested the depth with lossless raw+large/fine JPEG, where we managed an excellent 43 frames with our difficult-to-compress target.

Autofocus

The D4S brings over the Multi-CAM 3500FX 51-point autofocus system from the D4, but introduces a new “Group AF” mode, which activates the four surrounding AF points to a specific single AF point to help keep focus while tracking small, fast-moving subjects. If the subject moves out from behind the central AF point, the corresponding four AF points can help maintain focus. The Group AF system is reminiscent of Canon’s AF Point Expansion mode on their high-end DSLRs.

The D4S also has what Nikon calls “AF point position memory,” which keeps the AF point aligned respective to the frame when changing from landscape to portrait orientation and vice versa.

Workflow

For many professional photographers — and especially sports shooters — speed and performance of the autofocus system and burst shooting is not the only critical feature they demand from their camera. The speed at which they can get images out of the camera and off to editors, clients and others is also very important. The D4 included a 100Base-T Ethernet jack for fast image transfers straight from the camera while shooting. The D4S now includes a 1000Base-T Gigabit Ethernet connection. Nikon rates it as good for a transfer rate of up to 185Mbps, up from a comparatively meager 60Mbps on the D4.

Other workflow-related improvements include a new “RAW SIZE S” file option, which produces 12-bit uncompressed NEF files at 2,464 x 1,640 pixels (or approximately half-resolution), with a file size of around 12MB. For those shooters who don’t need full 16MP images or are trying to maximize the capacity of their memory cards while still wanting the editing flexibility of RAW, this is a beneficial feature.

Battery

Battery life has also been improved, not only thanks to the more power-efficient EXPEED 4 chip, but also a new EN-EL18a lithium-ion battery. The D4 has a CIPA-rated 3,020 shots/charge capacity, up from a CIPA-rated 2,600 shots on the Nikon D4.

It’s worth noting that Nikon claims they are able to squeeze out a whopping 5,960 shots/charge using their own testing methodology. They have a fair point, because the CIPA test replicates something akin to a consumer photographer’s behavior — shoot one image every 30 seconds, turning the camera off and back on again after every tenth shot. Most likely, Nikon’s own test simply involves shooting longer, high-speed bursts.

In the real world, you can probably expect something in between the two figures.

Video

It’s not only stills shooters that get performance and handling upgrades with the D4S — video shooters should also welcome some notable improvements. First off, thanks to the new processor, the D4S can now shoot Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixel; 1080p) video at up to 60 frames per second, though maximum clip length in this new mode is limited to 10 minutes at High Quality (42Mbps) and 20 minutes at Normal Quality (24Mbps).

For users on professional video productions, the D4S not only has the ability to output a clean, uncompressed 1080p60 video feed via HDMI for use in external recorders, but it can also simultaneously record H.264 video to the internal CompactFlash or XQD memory card.

The D4S also features improved exposure control for video, including the ability to use Auto ISO in full manual exposure mode for video recording. Sensitivity can range from a low of ISO 400 to a high of ISO 409,600 equivalent.

And for users shooting time-lapse and other interval-timed recordings, the D4S has a new auto-exposure feature to smoothly even out unforeseen changes in shot-to-shot exposures and avoid difficult or time-consuming exposure adjustments via post-processing.

Audio

Audio recording capabilities have also been given an upgrade, including selectable audio frequencies such as Wide Range and Vocal Range, letting the shooter more closely isolate the type or style of sound they want to record. Of course, like the previous model, the D4S includes a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and 3.5mm stereo mic jack, and allows 30 steps of audio level adjustment. Unlike its predecessor, though, the D4S lets you adjust microphone sensitivity while recording.

All the small things

As we mentioned above, there are a host of small tweaks and changes to the Nikon D4S. And while they may not benefit every user of this camera, Nikon has taken suggestions from a variety of photographers and integrated these small features and improvements to make the D4S even more powerful and customizable to your shooting style and needs.

For photographers who, perhaps, print JPEGs regularly or need a more precise view of the colors when reviewing photos on the rear LCD, the D4S now lets you adjust the color tone of the 921k-dot, 3.2-inch LCD to more closely match studio monitors, or just to account for your personal tastes. The optical viewfinder, meanwhile, remains largely unchanged with large, bright 100% coverage and 0.70x magnification.

Nikon has also modified the mirror movement mechanism to improve viewfinder visibility by absorbing mirror slap, thereby minimizing viewfinder blackout time. Now, snapping photos — especially at the full rate of 11 fps — won’t interrupt the scene in the viewfinder as much, making it easier to keep your subject framed as you want.

And speaking of snapping photos, the D4S now makes it simple and fast to toggle between the XQD and CompactFlash memory cards (yes, the D4S maintains the XQD/CF pairing, not two card slots of the same type). A quick two-button shortcut will switch to the other card.

The last little tweak we’ll mention here is for telephoto shooters. Many Nikon telephoto lenses have a focus operation button on the barrel to activate AF or as a memory recall setting to quickly change to a certain focusing distance. The Nikon D4S now has a custom feature in the camera that lets photographers re-program this button to toggle through the different AF modes.

Exterior Design

Moving from the interior out to the exterior, it’s fairly obvious that the design of the Nikon D4S is not significantly different from the D4. The camera sports a weather-sealed, full magnesium alloy body that follows the D-series industrial design styling produced in collaboration with Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign firm. However, for the D4S, there have been a few subtle adjustments to the ergonomics and button layout.

The Nikon D4S (left) vs the D4 (right): The exterior of the camera is nearly identical aside from a deeper thumb rest groove on the vertical grip, and some subtle button adjustments.

The Nikon D4S (left) vs the D4 (right): On the front, again things are largely unchanged. The D4S does slim down the hand grip some to add more clearance between your hand and the lens.

The grip on the D4S has been narrowed slightly, while the space between the lens and your fingers has been increased slightly for more clearance — a nice modification when you’re shooting with larger, wider lenses and/or, perhaps, in colder conditions and wearing thick gloves. The built-in battery grip contours have also been redesigned with a larger, deeper thumb grip for added comfort.

Recommended Accessories

Large capacity CompactFlash and XQD memory cards. Given the high resolution and large file sizes of the D4S, 32GB is a good tradeoff between cost and capacity. If you plan to capture high-definition movie clips, shoot image bursts, or shoot in RAW format, look for cards with markings indicating 30MB/s (200x) or higher. (Smaller numbers are slower cards.)